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Monday, April 23, 2012

India : Punjab records first swine flu death

" The deadly swine flu is back in Punjab, with the state reporting the season's first fatality due to the disease, sending the state health department -- that grappled with more than 300 such cases over the last two years -- into a tizzy.

Vijay Kumar, 35, resident of Nangal -- a town located on the banks of the country's biggest dam Bhakra Nangal -died in Ludhiana on Friday evening. Kumar, who died at Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) was one of the two patients from the state, who had tested H1N1 positive earlier this month.

"The patient's blood sample showed high level of infection which usually happens in this flu, if not reported on time. By the time he was here, he had septicemia -- a bacteria that occurs with infections, resulting in a cardiac arrest," Dr Rajesh Mahajan, professor of medicine at DMCH, told TOI.

Lack of isolation wards, bed facilities and ventilators at district hospitals in Punjab have been a cause of concern. Between 2009 and 2010, there were 252 people in Punjab who tested positive for the flu, leaving 73 of them dead due to delay in treatment. A woefully small number of central government laboratories with facilities to test throat swabs for swine flu has already hampered the early treatment of patients."